Unofficial P.E. Relationship/Romance Thread pt.2

[Gfted1]

(the exception being Morrigan who would have sex with the character until they were in a relationship and then refuse).

 

Ah, art imitating life.

[kenup]

(the exception being Morrigan who would have sex with the character until they were in a relationship and then refuse).

 

Ah, art imitating life.

That's until she wants to have kids!

[Monte Carlo]

Have said before that tis only right for an NPC to leave you and take half your treasure, with shared custody of your imp familiar.

[Merin]

Everytime I see "promancers" I keep thinking of some kind of championship wizardry league.

 

"Little hedge wizard, you aren't in the big leagues. When you're in the Shadowdale Evokers, you get sponsorships, lucrative contracts, and everyone turns out to the jousting fields to watch you duel! If you want to go promancer, sign the contract!"

[Estelindis]

Just wait till all the promancers respawn.

Really? People in favour of romance subplots are monsters who exist to be fought and slain again and again? Do you think you could lay off the hyperbole?

 

It's Obsidian's choice to include romantic subplots or not. What matters is that, either way, the relationships they write into the game are interesting and nuanced. If they don't put romances in, well, this whole discussion doesn't matter. If they do, though, the romances could take all kinds of forms; this seems like a more fruitful area for discussion. In my opinion, then, it would be better to discuss features you do or don't want romances to have, pitfalls to avoid or strengths that could be added to romantic subplots, rather than just arguing for or against point blank.

[kenup]

Just wait till all the promancers respawn.

Really? People in favour of romance subplots are monsters who exist to be fought and slain again and again? Do you think you could lay off the hyperbole?

Seriously? I'm not the one doing the hyperbole. It was a joke and I was referring to pvp not mobs. You guys really need to grow up, or do these things really hit a nerve and you just can't admit your reasons for wanting romance minigames?

Edited October 22, 2012 by kenup

[Monte Carlo]

@ Estelindis.

 

Dear lady, I would be loathe to offend you. However, the pro-romance faction do have, how do I say it? A tendency towards thin-skins in the rough-and-tumble of debate. Hopefully you wouldn't take it personally.

 

Really? People in favour of romance subplots are monsters who exist to be fought and slain again and again?

 

Basically, yes. Not *all* of those in favour of romances, no. In fact some promancers are utterly agreeable and are good friends of mine in the context of this forum. However, they are like the person who, thinking they have a cold, have unwittingly brought Ebola to the door. The Ebola in question being the horde of BSN refugees who *will* turn up here and irrevocably alter, mayhap destroy, our little Happy Place here.

 

Therefore it is unsurprising that there is an element of "stand by to repel boarders" at the moment.

 

As for hyperbole, 'tis one of my hobbies. I shall try to curtail it lest offence is caused.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Really? People in favour of romance subplots are-

 

-a little sad and more than a little annoying?

[Andwit25]

Haven't you really read the post? Please, where does one week come from?

 

It might be helpful to understand that when you write a romanceable character, you are writing at least 50-75% more. Why? To cater for the players who don't romance that character. Or do you think that if you don't romance a character they should be virtually mute? It's more or less like two separate story arcs, an either / or in many instances.

 

If you can do that in a week you need to get a resume together and send it in. Writing is a job just the same as putting together art assets or programming. It's not just drinking coffee and tapping away at the keyboard now and then. It's graft.

First just because you are in a relationship with somebody does not mean that you talk about nothing else. The relationship status can be easily expressed by changing a few lines, e.g. how the character responds, how he/she adresses the main character.

Second you definatly don´t need 50% more dialog for this. E.g. on the BioWare board a developer postet that cutting the four romances (dialog, cutscenes, dialog and banter by other characters bringing your relationship status up and more) would have not freed enough resources for an additional companion.

Seamingly you and all the other antiromancers don´t seem to realise that even without romance a character needs more then one dialog path.

Third why are posting on the Obsidian boards ? NWN2, AP, MotB, and FO:NV all had romantic content of some kiod (Ok FA:NV is a bit of a strech and I don´t know about DS)

[Monte Carlo]

:: Bangs head against wall ::

 

I give up. And I post here because I like Obsidian's games, thankyou very much.

[Malcador]

Bit of a stretch to call it romance in AP, as well, especially Sie's, heh.

[Andwit25]

:: Bangs head against wall ::

 

I give up. And I post here because I like Obsidian's games, thankyou very much.

Well then the question is, Why do you have an issue with romances if so many games that you like have them ?

[Malcador]

He doesn't have to like every aspect of the games, I suppose. Not that many with romance (well not many period, to be honest, heh) either, and it's not exactly some sort of pre-requisite to post on this sub-forum or the forums at all.

[jarpie]

Haven't you really read the post? Please, where does one week come from?

 

It might be helpful to understand that when you write a romanceable character, you are writing at least 50-75% more. Why? To cater for the players who don't romance that character. Or do you think that if you don't romance a character they should be virtually mute? It's more or less like two separate story arcs, an either / or in many instances.

 

If you can do that in a week you need to get a resume together and send it in. Writing is a job just the same as putting together art assets or programming. It's not just drinking coffee and tapping away at the keyboard now and then. It's graft.

First just because you are in a relationship with somebody does not mean that you talk about nothing else. The relationship status can be easily expressed by changing a few lines, e.g. how the character responds, how he/she adresses the main character.

Second you definatly don´t need 50% more dialog for this. E.g. on the BioWare board a developer postet that cutting the four romances (dialog, cutscenes, dialog and banter by other characters bringing your relationship status up and more) would have not freed enough resources for an additional companion.

Seamingly you and all the other antiromancers don´t seem to realise that even without romance a character needs more then one dialog path.

Third why are posting on the Obsidian boards ? NWN2, AP, MotB, and FO:NV all had romantic content of some kiod (Ok FA:NV is a bit of a strech and I don´t know about DS)

 

http://forums.obsidi...40#entry1257224

http://forums.obsidi...60#entry1257453

http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1258212

http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1257519

http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1257566

http://forums.obsidi...00#entry1258255

 

Have fun reading and counter-arguing mine and others points from those with actual facts and solid arguments why romances wouldn't take much time, and how they could be well done with a small effort and time.

 

I expect counter arguments on all the points I've give in those posts. Enjoy!

Edited October 22, 2012 by jarpie

[Amentep]

Haven't you really read the post? Please, where does one week come from?

 

It might be helpful to understand that when you write a romanceable character, you are writing at least 50-75% more. Why? To cater for the players who don't romance that character. Or do you think that if you don't romance a character they should be virtually mute? It's more or less like two separate story arcs, an either / or in many instances.

 

If you can do that in a week you need to get a resume together and send it in. Writing is a job just the same as putting together art assets or programming. It's not just drinking coffee and tapping away at the keyboard now and then. It's graft.

First just because you are in a relationship with somebody does not mean that you talk about nothing else. The relationship status can be easily expressed by changing a few lines, e.g. how the character responds, how he/she adresses the main character.

 

However the less reactive the relationship - and this is any PC / NPC relationship, not just romance - the less impact it will have on the player. And then you get the marriage in Skyrim that seems to exist so you can get a free store because it matters not at all to anything else in the game.

 

I think for those of us who want the romances in the game, we'd want that aspect of our PC / NPC relationship to matter in the game beyond a facebook like status update.

 

Second you definatly don´t need 50% more dialog for this. E.g. on the BioWare board a developer postet that cutting the four romances (dialog, cutscenes, dialog and banter by other characters bringing your relationship status up and more) would have not freed enough resources for an additional companion.

 

To be fair, just because you couldn't create a 3,000 line extra NPC by cutting 1,500 lines doesn't make creating the 1,500 lines trivial, either.

 

Seamingly you and all the other antiromancers don´t seem to realise that even without romance a character needs more then one dialog path.

 

Most of them do realize that; they just firmly believe that the romance dialog path doesn't need to be created at all.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Amentep

[Andwit25]

He doesn't have to like every aspect of the games, I suppose. Not that many with romance (well not many period, to be honest, heh) either, and it's not exactly some sort of pre-requisite to post on this sub-forum or the forums at all.

Sure, but I find the behavior of several of the anti-romance crowd highly hypocritical.

Afterall more than half of Obsidian´s games have this feature, starting with their very first game in 2004, yet they act as if promancers were asking for some new thing that was never a part of an Obsidian game.

[Lurky]

First just because you are in a relationship with somebody does not mean that you talk about nothing else. The relationship status can be easily expressed by changing a few lines, e.g. how the character responds, how he/she adresses the main character.

 

Hey there! I wrote a post talking about that three pages ago, right here. You might be interested in rereading it, and it would make me happy because it takes me time to write stuff like that. I mean, it's just four paragraphs. It's not even that big of a wall of text. Could you do me that favour, please? Thanks!

 

If you reread it, you will notice that what you said is patently wrong. You can't just "change a few lines", because the entire character has to accomodate for these new lines if you want them to feel natural.

 

Second you definatly don´t need 50% more dialog for this. E.g. on the BioWare board a developer postet that cutting the four romances (dialog, cutscenes, dialog and banter by other characters bringing your relationship status up and more) would have not freed enough resources for an additional companion.

 

It should be noted that the resources spent in a new companion and the resources spent in expanding existing companions aren't really comparable.

 

Creating a new companion takes a lot more work than adding new content to an existing companion. For starters, you have to create all the assets of the new character (art, AI, gameplay that has to be balanced...). You also have to do all the entire process of preproduction I mentioned in the linked post above. It all adds together, and it takes much more work to do all that than expanding on existing companions where you can reuse all the basic stuff.

 

Also, it should be noted that the kind of resources spent in late BioWare games and here isn't really comparable. A new companion with depth comparable to the others would require spending significant money on a new voice actor. Did you know that many voice actors are paid in hours? It's much cheaper to churn out more lines of the few actors you have than hiring new ones. And then there's the cutscenes. Do you know how expensive those are? So much, that PE probably won't have them, or only in very limited amounts.

 

Dude the promancers aren't overly interested in fact. They just want romances. And they only take 6-9 days to write.

I'm not talking to the people who don't want to listen. I'm just adding stuff for anyone who might want to read this thread without participating, or for anyone who might actually want to participate and try to make themselves useful. Let me hope that people like that exist, man.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Lurky

[Monte Carlo]

Stated precursor games to Project Eternity.

 

BG:1 no romances.

 

BG:2 3/4 minor romances.

 

IWD: No romances.

 

IWD2: No romances.

 

PS:T: Are they, really, romances?

 

Do the maths.

[kenup]

He doesn't have to like every aspect of the games, I suppose. Not that many with romance (well not many period, to be honest, heh) either, and it's not exactly some sort of pre-requisite to post on this sub-forum or the forums at all.

Sure, but I find the behavior of several of the anti-romance crowd highly hypocritical.

Afterall more than half of Obsidian´s games have this feature, starting with their very first game in 2004, yet they act as if promancers were asking for some new thing that was never a part of an Obsidian game.

There is nothing hypocritical about it. You don't have to like everything in a game to like the game. We are not against good characters or plot, we just don't want things that don't add up anything to those; and adding romance minigames doesn't do that, it just costs time and resources.

Edited October 22, 2012 by kenup

[Andwit25]

However the less reactive the relationship - and this is any PC / NPC relationship, not just romance - the less impact it will have on the player. And then you get the marriage in Skyrim that seems to exist so you can get a free store because it matters not at all to anything else in the game.

 

I think for those of us who want the romances in the game, we'd want that aspect of our PC / NPC relationship to matter in the game beyond a facebook like status update.

I can´t completly agree here. While too little interaction with the NPC in question and too little regognition of the relationship is definitly bad (like in Skyrim,Fable,..), the same is also true if you have too much. Small subtle things, like changing the sound the character makes if you click his/her portrait, small one line long remarks by other character and so on, are a much better way to communicate the relationship to the player. This also has the benefit that the player has enough space to fill in gabs with his/her imagination.

[Amentep]

Stated precursor games to Project Eternity.

 

BG:1 no romances.

 

BG:2 3/4 minor romances.

 

IWD: No romances.

 

IWD2: No romances.

 

PS:T: Are they, really, romances?

 

Do the maths.

 

To be fair I think PST could be seen as romances; I certainly felt that as a player that TNO was supposed to have a romantic connection to Annah and possibly FFG. Its subtle but it was there to my mind. And because the characters are all so well-realized you there's plenty there regardless.

 

IWD I think conceptually could never support romance; neither was very strong on character being very plot oriented (and dungeon fighting).

 

That leaves BG; I think the reactions of players to those characters is what shaped BG2 to allow more character relationship options (NPC-NPC and PC-NPC).

[kenup]

I can´t completly agree here. While too little interaction with the NPC in question and too little regognition of the relationship is definitly bad (like in Skyrim,Fable,..), the same is also true if you have too much. Small subtle things, like changing the sound the character makes if you click his/her portrait, small one line long remarks by other character and so on, are a much better way to communicate the relationship to the player. This also has the benefit that the player has enough space to fill in gabs with his/her imagination.

:banghead:

 

GOD DAMN IT!

 

You are just trolling right now.

Edited October 22, 2012 by kenup

[Monte Carlo]

@ 'Tep.

 

Agreed more or less. Therefore let's try to agree that romances should be, on aggregate, as important to P:E as they were to the totality of what went before.

 

That is to say marginal, unobtrusive, easily ignored or (in the case of PS:T) so ambiguous you could see them either way and just as intriguing NPC interaction.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Monte Carlo

[Amentep]

However the less reactive the relationship - and this is any PC / NPC relationship, not just romance - the less impact it will have on the player. And then you get the marriage in Skyrim that seems to exist so you can get a free store because it matters not at all to anything else in the game.

 

I think for those of us who want the romances in the game, we'd want that aspect of our PC / NPC relationship to matter in the game beyond a facebook like status update.

I can´t completly agree here. While too little interaction with the NPC in question and too little regognition of the relationship is definitly bad (like in Skyrim,Fable,..), the same is also true if you have too much. Small subtle things, like changing the sound the character makes if you click his/her portrait, small one line long remarks by other character and so on, are a much better way to communicate the relationship to the player. This also has the benefit that the player has enough space to fill in gabs with his/her imagination.

 

I wasn't suggesting that the game become PC FANTASY ROMANCE: THE GAME if a romance was initiated; only that I don't think the summation of a romance to be a "married" perk and a companion you can't kick out of your party until you divorce them is a terribly interesting design.

 

And I also don't think that adding a well-realized romance is necessarily trivial; "small one line long remarks by other character" would need (for realism) several triggers just to make work (so the character doesn't start dialogue in combat or similar inopportune times). Add reactivity to the other NPCs? Well now you have to think through 7 more reactions to the relationships and probably at its various stages...etc.

[Uomoz]

I find funny how so many people refers to romance as a minigame. It's not, essentially is a "normal" interpersonal relationship, like friendship. Like in PST, you have different relationships with different characters and that's it, no minigames involved.